Homicide levels hit all-time low in Australia

Australia's murder rate has hit its lowest level ever, although women remained grossly overrepresented as victims of intimate partner homicides, new data released on Thursday showed.

The homicide rate reached a an all-time low of 1.1 victims per 100,000 people in the two years to June 2012, according to the latest National Homicide Monitoring Program (NHMP) report prepared by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC).

The 272 homicides in 2011-2012 were 18 percent down on the level from 1989, the earliest data collected by the AIC, when 331 homicides were recorded.

While homicides in the country are trending down, women were more than three times more likely than men to be killed by an intimate partner, with 83 women killed in the two year study period.

However, victimization of women and girls overall remained stable at its historic low of 0.8 per 100,000 people.

Males remain overrepresented as victims, at 64 percent, and offenders, at 85 percent.

The most common relationship between homicide offender and victim throughout 201011 and 2011-12 was domestic at 39 percent, closely followed by friends and acquaintance homicide.

Domestic violence has been a large focus for police and support services in the past 12 months after the brutal killing of Luke Batty, an 11-year-old from Victoria killed by his father at an oval after cricket training.

Luke's mother, Rosie, was awarded Australian of the Year last month for her efforts to campaign for better support for victims of domestic violence.

With Australia's access to firearms much more restricted than that of countries like the United States, knives remain the most commonly-used murder weapon.

In 198990, 25 percent of homicides involved the use of a firearm, while in 2011-12 firearms were used in 16 percent of homicide incidents. Endi